He used to say that as a boy he was a very mean one, saucy,
quarrelsome, and wicked, liked horse-racing and card-playing--both
alike disreputable in those times. In early manhood he "experienced
religion" and joined the Old-School Baptist Church, of which his
parents were members, and then all his bad habits seem to have
been discarded. He stopped swearing and Sabbath-breaking, and
other forms of wickedness, and became an exemplary member of the
community. He was a man of unimpeachable veracity; bigoted and
intolerant in his religious and political views, but a good
neighbor, a kind father, a worthy citizen, a fond husband, and
a consistent member of his church. He improved his farm, paid
his debts, and kept his faith. He had no sentiment about things
and was quite unconscious of the beauties of nature over which we
make such an ado. "The primrose by the river's brim" would not
have been seen by him at all. This is true of most farmers; the
plough and the hoe and the scythe do not develop their aesthetic
sensibilities; then, too, in the old religious view the beauties
of this world were vain and foolish.
I have said that my father had strong religious feeling. He took
"The Signs of the Times" for over forty years, reading all those
experiences with the deepest emotion.
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